CIT Accomplishments and Plans - Computing at Cornell - Cornell ...

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22 Geographically Diverse Fiber for Redundant WAN Connectivity CIT maintains a fiber pathway for data along the east side of Cayuga Lake to Syracuse . This year an additional fiber path was built up the west side of the lake to Rochester . The new fiber path meets a number of important needs for the campus, increasing communication capabilities, security options, and connectivity backups . A spur off the main fiber attaches to the Geneva Research Station, providing ten gigabit-per-second data connectivity and better phone service to the Geneva campus . This allows videoconferencing between Geneva and Ithaca and also gives researchers in Geneva access to the Center for Advanced Computing and large databases on the Ithaca campus . In the event of a disaster, the Geneva facilities can now be leveraged as an emergency staging area for Ithaca computational resources . At Rochester, there is a backup Internet2 Research and Education connection that is automatically brought up if there is a loss of Cornell’s main Internet2 connection . Internet2 is a high-speed network for higher education . The Rochester connection also allows Cornell to dynamically form a ring back to Cornell’s equipment in Syracuse in case of a break in the fiber connection between Ithaca and Syracuse to re-establish our multiple connections to NYC . The Video Collaboration Services team, from left, Andrew Page, Hope Spicer, Alex Nemeth, Tracy Gavich, Trisha Denesevich, David Kingsley, Donald Buttaccio, and Jim Avery . Network Capacity Doubled for EZ-Backup and Other Initiatives CIT lit up an additional 10 gigabitper-second connection from Ithaca to Syracuse to New York City . From the Cornell router at 32 Avenue of Americas, it provides high-speed connectivity to Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as to many other research institutions around the world . The 10 Gbps lambda is not a physical connection, but a particular wavelength of light used across a series of Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) connections . EZ-Backup data is sent across the connection to a secure secondary system at the Weill Cornell Medical College facility . The connection can also be used for real-time video collaboration between the two campuses . Comprehensive Video Streaming Architecture Emerges as a Campus-Wide Need In 2009, CIT launched a campus-wide collaborative effort to develop video streaming technology standards and support services for the future . While the university has been streaming video for years, the continuing increase in demand underscores the necessity for a scalable architecture that accommodates the variety of video streaming needs across campus—everything from podcast quality to the near-broadcast quality usually needed for distance learning classes . The new architecture will define: ▪ A content management system for cataloging, editing, and publishing audio/video streams . ▪ An audio-video capture system for producing a range of quality, and servicing a variety of venues . For example, Cornell might need some systems that are fixed in one place, perhaps in selected classrooms, and some portable systems that are easily moved . ▪ A media hosting solution for storing video and serving it out in appropriate formats . The first step in the process has been to engage the university community in a series of discussions held during the 2009 IT Forum and two video summits hosted by CIT and attended by members of Cornell‘s Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College audio-visual communities . A variety of needs, concerns, questions, and approaches emerged along with a straw architecture based on standard technologies and systems . The next step is to establish a video streaming task force to advise CIT and Cornell as the university develops its comprehensive video streaming plan .
23 Responding to Change and Containing IT Costs Continually improving our products and services has enabled economies of scale and lowered costs for some services, helping campus departments better use and secure their information. By retiring and streamlining some services, our staff has been able to focus on projects with higher impact. On a smaller scale, we are developing a series of cost-saving tips for CIT services to help inform technology decisions campus departments must make. Holding the Line on Rates and Improving Service Along with the rest of the university, CIT must creatively cut costs even as we continue providing services to help Cornell fulfill its mission . As such, we are aggressively looking to better align our resources with campus . To assist colleges and units in meeting their budget targets this year, we have not raised rates for CIT services . Nearly half of our fee-based services lowered their rates, as much as twenty-five percent in the case of EZ-Backup . Services that lowered rates: ▪ EZ-Backup ▪ Net-Print ▪ On-Site Solutions* ▪ Storage Farm ▪ Video Services* ▪ Web Hosting* ▪ Web Production * Multiple services are offered in these categories, and some rates were lowered while others were unchanged . Cutting Budgets to Help Cornell Meet its Goals Our planned budget for FY09 was $78 million, but pauses in hiring and construction, including the slowdown of EzraNet, resulted in $66 million spent for the year . We are on a trajectory to spend $60 .4 million in FY10 as the university lowers IT spending to help meet its overall financial targets . In addition to making necessary budget changes, CIT’s staff count was reduced by thirty-three positions, twenty-two of which were achieved by employees taking advantage of Cornell’s staff retirement incentive (SRI) . Beyond the nearly $10 million reduction due to construction pauses, CIT funding was reduced in several major areas, including $2 .2 million in base funding, over and above the nearly $2 .4 million reduction resulting from SRI . CIT has balanced the base budget by pursuing virtualized public labs, consolidating the management of collaboration tools, outsourcing student email, not filling open positions across multiple services, and reducing support service costs for human resources, finance, project management, travel, training, events, etc . Administrative systems costs have been reduced through new approaches to procuring Oracle and PeopleSoft application maintenance, optimizing and leveraging server-based capacity, and other operating expense reductions . Close to $0 .8 million in annual expense was reduced when the National LambdaRail lowered its costs, a significant savings on the ultrahigh performance network Cornell researchers require . Retiring Outmoded Services Two long-standing but dated services were decommissioned in the past year: the EZ-Remote modem dialup service and CU People, the university’s personal web page service . Both were put in place when commercial alternatives were scarce . Discontinuing support for them makes sense now that broadband is widespread and a person can establish several web presences with no cost at all . The decision to end support was vetted by the IT Managers Council, the Faculty Advisory Board on Information Technologies, and other stakeholders . As a result of these retirements, we were able to save money that would have been required to update both systems, decommission old equipment, and redirect staff to the project of moving faculty and staff to Exchange email . On June 19, CIT honored its departing retirees in an event in Clark Hall . Among the people whose dedicated service to CIT and Cornell were honored were, from left, Pat Nelson, Kathie Struble, Jan Jesmer, Mark Mara, Polley McClure, Rosanne Murphy, Jim Lombardi, Ann Santiago, Gene Holleran, Gail Shaff, Deb Chilson, Doug Wheeler, and Helen Russler . Not pictured, Chuck Thomas, Dan Miller, Gary Domke, Gary Ingraham, George Medlar, Jim Conley, John Becker, Marjorie Wolff, and Rich Fraboni .
Page 1 and 2: CIT Accomplishments and Plans Corne
Page 3 and 4: Vice President for Information Tech
Page 5 and 6: 5 Building Partnerships to Meet Uni
Page 7 and 8: 7 Summer Seminar Examines the Impac
Page 9 and 10: 9 Developing Contemporary Systems k
Page 11 and 12: 11 Piloting OBIEE+: A New Business
Page 13 and 14: 13 Enhancing Academic Technologies
Page 15 and 16: 15 Online Videos of Classes and Sem
Page 17 and 18: 17 Data Discovery Tools To support
Page 19 and 20: 19 Building a Policy Foundation for
Page 21: 21 Improved Cell Coverage On Campus
Page 25 and 26: Total Cost of CIT Programs and Serv

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